Editing Mormonism and polygamy (section)

==== 1887 Edmunds–Tucker Act ====
{{Main|Edmunds–Tucker Act}}
[[File:Polygamists in prison.jpg|thumb|290px|Polygamists, including [[George Q. Cannon]], imprisoned under the Edmunds–Tucker Act, at the Utah Penitentiary in 1889.]]
In 1887, the [[Edmunds–Tucker Act]] allowed the disincorporation of the LDS Church and the seizure of church property; it also further extended the punishments of the Edmunds Act. On July 31 of the same year, U.S. Attorney General George Peters filed suit to seize all church assets.<ref>{{cite journal |last1= Alexander|first1=Thomas G. |date= 1991|title= The Odyssey of a Latter-day Prophet: Wilford Woodruff and the Manifesto of 1890 |url= https://www.jstor.org/stable/23286430 |journal= [[Journal of Mormon History]]|volume=17 |issue= |pages= 169–206|doi= |jstor=23286430 |access-date=February 5, 2024}}</ref>

The church was losing control of the territorial government, and many members and leaders were being actively pursued as fugitives. Without being able to appear publicly, the leadership was left to navigate "underground".<ref>{{harvnb|van Beek|2003|p=123}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Bowman|2022|p=174}}.</ref>

Following the passage of the Edmunds–Tucker Act, the church found it difficult to operate as a viable institution. After visiting priesthood leaders in many settlements, church president [[Wilford Woodruff]] left for San Francisco on September 3, 1890, to meet with prominent businessmen and politicians. He returned to Salt Lake City on September 21, determined to obtain divine confirmation to pursue a course that seemed to be agonizingly more and more clear. As he explained to church members a year later, the choice was between, on the one hand, continuing to practice polygamy and thereby losing the [[temple (LDS Church)|temples]], "stopping all the ordinances therein" and, on the other, ceasing to practice polygamy in order to continue performing the essential ordinances for the living and the dead. Woodruff hastened to add that he had acted only as the Lord directed.{{citation needed|date=May 2023}}